Asmark’s Diary part 11: An Unwelcome Guest at the Funeral

In The Doom that Came to Amber

Seaday: 26^th Bull 3658

There was a good turn out at breakfast: the Regent, Flora, Deirdre, Morwaith, Bathsheba and myself were joined at table by ambassador Khitan.

Aylwin arrived but merely filled a large roll, intending to eat elsewhere. Nevertheless, the Regent took the opportunity to enquire when he will be going to Lyon abbey. I was a little surprised by this. I had last heard talk of Lyon abbey on Bridesday when its problems were being associated with the problems in Kashfa. The next day (Lordsday), Kashfa “was not a priority”. I have no idea what now makes it one of the Regent’s main concerns. [Asmark had missed the post-Emeraldheart briefing of the day before.]

Strictly Lyon Abbey is Golden Circle business as Eregnor is still recognised as a province of Begma. Aylwin replied that he will attend to it once the funeral is over. It seemed the Regent would prefer action today, but did not press the point. Khitan volunteered to help Aylwin. After some discussion of who should be involved, and it seemed likely that Khitan’s offer would be taken up. There does not, at this stage, seem to be any diplomatic aspect to this that need concern me.

Prince Julian also said that he wished to see Aylwin and myself, apparently on different business, after breakfast. Aylwin excused himself from an immediate meeting on the strength of an unspecified breakfast meeting, presumably a highly informal one if he will be arriving with his make-shift breakfast. An audience for Aylwin and myself was set for ten o’clock. The Regent also wished to speak separately with Morwaith and this was arranged for immediately after breakfast.

Khitan asked for my assistance in moving some spices and cloth from Cordoba to Amber. I agreed suggesting that I should send Khitan to Cordoba immediately after breakfast. Accordingly Khitan and I went together from breakfast to the Office of the Golden Circle. In fact we had quite a long chat before I sent Khitan through.

Khitan is worried about what had happened at Lyon abbey. He believes the abbot was practitioner of ‘mythos’ related magic. He described the creatures in much the same way as Alaric did in a private chat a week ago. Khitan believes that these are leaking in through cracks in reality and that these are being deliberately opened by someone. He seems to suspect Brand of being behind everything. (Alaric suspected Oberon of being behind everything.) At the moment it seems to be a mixed bag of suspicions about things that may or may not be related. I agreed to make a few discreet enquires.

After these discussions I trumped Khitan through to Cordoba. Then I dispatched Sebastian to enquire whether the art school that Alaric’s friend Paulo is founding has been registered as a business.

I then turned my attention to a recently delivered letter from Raymond in Jasper. He has a more detailed account of the problems along the Jasper/Chalcedony border. The manifestation could similar to those at Lyon Abbey. It may be worth taking advantage of Raymond’s presence to trump through for a quick inspection of the site. However I would need to take someone with magical skills as I would not be any more able to assess the problem myself than the Unicorn priests on the spot.

By this time it was nearly ten so I went up to the Regent’s office and met Aylwin outside it. He is dressed as for combat. It is not clear whether this was required for his ‘breakfast meeting’ or he expects to need it for whatever will follow.

The main subject of the meeting was Peter Thrice. At the recent meeting in Faerie Peter was given a magical arrow that was formerly the property of Princess Rhiannon, when she was Warden of Arden. After discussing this with Peter the Regent decided that he should attempt to walk the Pattern, which he succeeded in doing, so he is of the Blood. For the moment, this is to remain confidential.

Julian is concerned that there are now two family members (Peter and myself) who have walked the Pattern but have yet to have any tuition in how to make proper use of this. Julian asked Aylwin to give us some lessons. Aylwin was quite amenable, so it is agreed.

Julian asked if there is anything else to report. I mentioned Raymond’s intelligence but this does not seem to be of any immediate concern so I did not go into detail. Julian then continued a private chat with Aylwin, which disturbed Aylwin.

After this we checked whether Peter had recovered from his Pattern-walk but he was still asleep. We agreed to meet again at lunch for an afternoon lesson. I spent the rest of the morning in the Office of the Golden Circle.

Lunch: Present were Aylwin, Alaric, Bathsheba, Peter and myself. None of the older generation were present. Peter, for no obvious good reason, had an arrow with him, presumably Rhiannon’s arrow.

Aylwin asked about arrangements for tomorrow’s funeral. All I could say is that I am not aware of any problems. Bathsheba asked about etiquette and I outlined what the headmaster had told me.

Aylwin received a note which seemed to perplex him, and he asked if anything had happened to the Primate of the Unicorn. The note was from Morwaith, explaining why he would not be attending lunch. Alaric told us that the Primate died yesterday and that Morwaith is to be appointed as his replacement but had yet to be informed of this. Aylwin trumped Morwaith to give him the ‘good news’.

I had already noticed that people of importance to Amber seem to be dropping like flies. The Ambassador from Sapphire was killed at Beltane, Queen Moiré five days later, Archmage Clarence four days after that and now the Archpriest three days later. I don’t like this sequence. It suggests another significant death tomorrow and then at least one more on Queensday. I mentioned this but no-one knows of any precedent for such a sequence.

Aylwin explained that he will be taking Peter and myself to shadow called Minjoninita, which is a moderately distant, and hence malleable, shadow for which he has a trump.

After lunch we trumped to Minjoninita. The shadow has an interesting and artistic style. All design is clearly constrained by a number of strict conventions. If I have the leisure I think this place would probably be worth spending sometime studying its style and society. It is clear that some of the inhabitants were enormously honoured by our presence, or perhaps just by the presence of Aylwin.

Aylwin set us some simple and safe shadow-walking tasks. The shadow is far more pliable than any that I have visited since my Pattern walk. Whereas in Amethyst I need to struggle to make any discernable difference, here the problem is more controlling the changes. Apparently time passes faster in this shadow allowing us to spend eight hours here and still return in Amber’s late afternoon.

Towards the end of the lesson I received a trump call from Khitan, asking me to bring him back to Amber. There was no point in transporting his goods to Minjoninita and I was reluctant to interrupt our lesson. Khitan agreed to trump again after the lesson.

Shortly after returning to the Amber castle I received a second trump call from Khitan while in the office. I walked out into the court yard and brought through Khitan and two camels laden with cloth and spices. Once I had summoned the necessary servants to assist Khitan, I returned to the office.

Sebastian reported that the Art School is not registered. This is not really a surprise, there are any number of reasons, some legitimate, some not, why it might not be registered. I don’t have the time to make further enquiries, but it seems the sort of thing that Jomes could probably find out. The problem is that Jomes was at (trump-proof) Malmsey yesterday. Nevertheless I tried his trump and found he and Algar were on their way back to Amber. They would have arrived too late to arrange a meeting before the funeral. Accordingly I arranged a trump short-cut for them, and soon as they had stabled their horses, brought them through so as to meet them for a drink after dinner.

Dinner itself is a quiet affair with nothing of note happening. Had I known it was going to be like that I would have had dinner with my friends.

After dinner I walked into town to their inn. On the way, it is clear that there was considerable hubbub in town. There were large crowds and a remarkable number of fires, however it all seemed to be good natured and a celebration over the arrival of the new prophet of the Unicorn, Morwaith.

It is a little ironic, given how long that Morwaith has been around, that he should now be feted as prophet merely because he is appointed Primate. Morwaith strikes me as wholly implausible as a rabble-rouser. Nevertheless Jomes and Algar (especially Algar, who may have to help handle any problems) were very concerned about it. However I told them in all sincerity that I expect everything to calm down in a day or two.

I asked Algar how he is getting on in Deirdre’s service. He is clearly very junior, he says he has seen the Princess twice, but is largely employed in delivering messages which he is having to do a great deal. However I have no idea whether this is merely a normal level of Sheriff’s business or whether something special is going on.

I asked Jomes to enquire into Paulo’s art school, explaining that it is on Ahmed Na’tyr’s behalf as there is the potential for mutual benefit between the school’s better pupils and the Cordoban merchant. This is of course true but not my primary reason for being interested. Jomes accepted but is angling for a more permanent position.

Shortly after returning to the castle Bathsheba called on me. She asked if I had any intelligence about Deirdre. I passed on Algar’s mention of high level of messages but noted that I really don’t know if this is out of the ordinary. Bathsheba is keen to have any further information on the subject that may be relevant.